Tag Archives: Arkady Strugatsky

(1) CASUALTY OF INTOLERANCE. Al Davison’s writeup about being harassed on the street in his hometown of Coventry comes recommended by James Bacon with the note: “New Britain — bigots empowered — comic artist and martial arts expert Al Davison racially abused. His view and experience must be read. A decent man doesn’t want to live here anymore and fears for those who are kind to him. It’s not good.”

WHY I DON’T WANT TO LIVE HERE: Sunday night I’m almost home, it’s started raining, I’m rushing because my immune system sucks, I only have to smell rain and I get ill. Two men on the other side of the road shout ‘Fu**in’ islamist cripple! One adds, ‘takin our fu**in’ benefits’, while the other shouts, ‘What happened, didn’t your fu**in’ suicide vest do the job properly?’

They get a bit ahead walking backwards so they can keep looking at me, the older of the two, puts his hand two his mouth and laughs ‘Sorry mate, thought you were a P*ki, Sorry, ‘And what if I was’, I shout’, still looking ahead, and not at them. The other responds with, ‘why you sayin’ sorry, he’s still a fu**in’ scroungin’ cripple.” They start chanting ‘scrounger’, and and literally dance off down the road, like a couple of teenagers, the youngest was in his thirties, the other around fifty. Morons. I have a beard and wear a hat, that makes me an islamist! I know I am more than capable of defending myself, I’ve survived numerous physical attacks, but many aren’t equiped to defend themselves the way I am. ‘WE SHOULDN’T FU**KING HAVE TOO! …

Make way, Liberal cabinet: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have another all-Canadian crew in his corner as he suits up for his latest feature role — comic book character.

Trudeau will grace the variant cover of issue No. 5 of Marvel’s “Civil War II: Choosing Sides,” due out Aug. 31.

Trudeau is depicted smiling, sitting relaxed in the boxing ring sporting a Maple Leaf-emblazoned tank, black shorts and red boxing gloves. Standing behind him are Puck, Sasquatch and Aurora, who are members of Canadian superhero squad Alpha Flight. In the left corner, Iron Man is seen with his arms crossed.

“I didn’t want to do a stuffy cover — just like a suit and tie — put his likeness on the cover and call it a day,” said award-winning Toronto-based cartoonist Ramon Perez.

“I wanted to kind of evoke a little bit of what’s different about him than other people in power right now. You don’t see (U.S. President Barack) Obama strutting around in boxing gear, doing push-ups in commercials or whatnot. Just throwing him in his gear and making him almost like an everyday person was kind of fun.”

The variant cover featuring Trudeau will be an alternative to the main cover in circulation showcasing Aurora, Puck, Sasquatch and Nick Fury.

Trudeau follows in the prime ministerial footsteps of his late father, Pierre, who graced the pages of “Uncanny X-Men” in 1979. [Volume 120]

I finally watched Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice. This was the Extended Cut and at least one review I’ve read suggest that the extra 30 minutes makes the film substantially better. Ah. Hmm. I didn’t see the theatrical version but either that was a huge mess of a film or the extra 30 minutes made the central problem far worse. This was a film that needed editing or some sort of substantial re-jigging. Perhaps what hit the theatres was a failed attempt at that?

Beyond this point there are spoilers aplenty – so don’t read on if you don’t want to discover who the alter-ego of Superman is or what house Batman lives in [HINT: its an anagram of Mayne Wanor].

Mr. Gaiman’s forthcoming book “Norse Mythology,” which Norton will publish next February, is an almost novelistic retelling of famous myths about the gods of Asgard. The book will explore the nine Norse worlds, which are populated by elves, fire demons, the Vanir gods, humans, dwarves, giants and the dead. There are ice giants and elves, familiar deities like Thor, Odin (the wise and occasionally vengeful highest god) and Loki (the giant trickster), and a frightening doomsday scenario, Ragnarok, where the gods fight a fire giant with a flaming sword in an apocalyptic, world-ending battle.

Gaiman joked about his posed photo accompanying the article.

I look at the photo & see a really brilliant tree, with a decorative author, so noone knows the tree wrote the book: https://t.co/IuqOKcNyh0

Robinson Meyer: “Who was the first author to write a novel on a word processor?” You cast that question as what drove you to write this book. Is there something close to a definitive answer for it?

Matthew Kirschenbaum: We can’t know with absolute certainty, I don’t think, but there are a couple of different answers.

If we think of a word processor or a computer as something close to what we understand today—essentially a typewriter connected to a TV set—there are a couple of contenders from the mid- to late-1970s. Notably Jerry Pournelle, who was a science fiction author. He is probably the first person to sit and compose at a “typewriter” connected to a “TV screen”—to compose there, to edit, and revise there, and then to send copy to his publisher. That was probably a novella called Spirals.

If we move back a little bit further, there’s an interesting story about a writer named John Hersey, the novelist and journalist. He did the famous book Hiroshima. He was at Yale in the early 1970s, so maybe about five years before Pournelle, and he worked on one of the mainframe systems there. He didn’t compose the draft of the novel he was working on at the keyboard, but he did edit it, and use the computer to typeset camera-ready copy.

I just finished a new collaboration. It’s a short story of nearly 10,000 words that will be in Bridging Infinity (you can pre-order here), edited by Johnathan Strahan “The latest volume in the Hugo award-winning Infinity Project series, showcasing all-original hard science fiction stories from the leading voices in genre fiction.”

The writer I collaborated with was Karen Lord, who currently lives in Barbados (author of Galaxy Games, Redemption in Indigo, you’re reading her, right?).

I asked her what her secret was, and she said something that would change my professional life as a writer: “Collect rejections. Set rejection goals. I know someone who shoots for one hundred rejections in a year, because if you work that hard to get so many rejections, you’re sure to get a few acceptances, too.”

This small piece of advice struck a deep chord in my fragile creative ego. My vulnerable ego only wants to be loved and accepted, to have my words ring out from a loudspeaker in Times Square while a neon ticker scrolls the text across a skyscraper, but it’s a big old coward….

The Guardian’s Phelim O’Neill just published a rather nice review of the long gone BBC science-fiction and horror anthology program “Out of the Unknown”. While I’ve never seen it myself, from what O’Neill wrote, it sounds like it was a real doozy. Consisting of four seasons aired on BBC 2 from 1965 to 1971, “Out of the Unknown” adapted literary works by the likes of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and J.G. Ballard.

Out of the 49 episodes filmed, only around 20 or so remain. As “Doctor Who” fans are already aware, it was standard procedure for the BBC to delete old episodes of what was at one time deemed disposable entertainment. Coincidentally, one of the lost episodes of “Out of the Uknown” actually featured Doctor Who’s arch nemeses: The Daleks.

Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to avoid paying the bond which would otherwise be necessary to appeal the $140 million judgment against them in the Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit. (It’s a good thing I don’t have to explain that sentence to a time traveler from the last century — would take a long time.) There have been plenty of stories and hot takes on it, so I’ll reach back to discuss what the real problem is — the cost of justice is too damn high. ….

Today’s United States resembles the Empire of Isher more than a little — a relatively prosperous population, but with layer upon layer of accreted law, regulation, and bureaucracy, with ideals of justice corrupted in practice so that only the wealthiest can afford government-sanctioned courts…. The impunity with which Gawker operated for years while stepping on the privacy rights of people for profit is just one symptom of the inability to get justice at a reasonable price. The simmering resentments of citizens made unknowing scofflaws while going about their lives and the increasing regulatory overhead to start and run a small business are slowing growth and damaging the careers of young people who have been trained to ask permission before trying anything new….

(10) KELLY OBIT. Peter David took note of the passing of a behind-the-scenes figure: Lorna Kelley, RIP.

The chances are spectacular that you have not heard of Lorna Kelly. For the vast majority of you, there is no reason that you would have. Lorna was an auctioneer who worked for Sotheby’s for a time–one of the first female fine arts auctioneers in the world–and she recently died of a stroke at the age of 70.

The reason that the David family knew her was because every year for over a decade, she was the auctioneer at the Broadway Bears charity auction sponsored by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Every year she would coax and cajole individuals into bidding ridiculous amounts of money for bears that had been lovingly costumed in exact replicas of Broadway character outfits. But that was hardly the extent of her life. She treated AIDS patients in Calcutta working with Mother Teresa. According to the NY Times, “She also traveled to Senegal, where she vaccinated thousands of children. In Cairo, she ministered to impoverished residents of a vast garbage dump; she likewise served the poor in Jordan, Gaza and the Bronx.” To say she led a well-rounded life is to understate it, and we were privileged to have met her and spent time with her.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

Born June 29, 1911 – Bernard Hermann

Born June 29, 1920 – Ray Harryhausen

And did they ever work together? I’m glad you asked – Internet Movie Database shows Hermann did the music for Mysterious Island and Jason and the Argonauts, two films for which Harryhausen created the special visual effects.

(12) GUILLERMO DEL TORO. Another film available to fans and collectors.

The 2006 film is often looked at as the filmmaker’s best work, and understandably so. Most of del Toro’s films have plenty of heart, horror, and beauty, but Pan’s Labyrinth, narratively and dramatically speaking, it is his most satisfying work. Good luck trying not to tear up during Ofelia’s (Ivana Baquero) heartbreaking journey.

Written by Transcendence scribe Jack Paglen, with Terminator Genisys and Game Of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor attached to direct and Neal Moritz producing, Roadside Picnic explores a near-future world where aliens have come and gone, leaving humankind to explore the wondrous and dangerous mysteries left behind. The story also explores the social ramifications of their visit, as seen through the eyes of Red (Goode), a veteran “stalker” who has made it his mission to illegally venture into the once inhabited zone and scavenge the abandoned remains of the alien culture.

Last night at the State Theatre in Minneapolis, I had the absolute pleasure to experience the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reunion show, hosted by Rifftrax, purveyors of downloadable movie-mocking commentary tracks, a company founded by several alums of the show. It also featured members of Cinematic Titanic, likewise the brainchild of ex-MST3K cast members. Last night, they got the band back together, uniting writers and actors from several eras of the show, both past and future. It was a celebration of the fact that Joel Hodgson, the original creator, recently wrapped the most successful film and video Kickstarter of all time: a successful bid to revive the show after more than 16 years off the air; squee. Hodgson riffed on a short with the new lead, Jonah Ray. I think I actually hurt my throat laughing….

It’s summer. Everything is on fire, melting, or exploding. Everybody is one power outage away from convincing themselves we’ve entered the world of Mad Max.

Which, hey, isn’t far off from what we’re offering. Leave reality behind for a while. Come see what we have on tap as we bring in our mix of award winning authors and emerging voices in the literary scene! It’s a genre experience like no other!

(16) HELP FRAN EVANS. Karen Willson alerted me that contributions are requested to the Fran Evans Assistance Fund (on GoFundMe) to help a longtime LASFSian.

This fundraiser is for a friend of mine, Fran Evans. Fran just had brain surgery and can’t work.

She says that “the money would be used to “pay my bills/rent for the next couple of months while I recovery from having holes drilled in my head. Whatever moneys I normally get go to my rent, this would help pay the difference and other bills. Not many, I’m pretty frugal. I have no credit cards. If I can’t pay by check or debit – it doesn’t happen. Water, for the moment, is free.

“I don’t smoke or drink or go shopping. My idea of a big splurge is a used paperback on Amazon. I just want couple of months to heal without any worries about money. The doctors said about two months before my balance begins to come back online. I seem to spend a lot of time resting or sleeping. Gee, wonder why.

“I’d like to get $2,000. to $2,500. But whatever I can get would be nice.”

Fran has worked many years in the film industry and the Bob Burns Halloween show. Folks at conventions will remember her for her backstage help at many events.

Your assistance will mean a lot to Fran. Thank you for thinking about it!

1- The main reason I like first person singular is that for a moment it tricks you into that space behind the eyes of another person, relieving the loneliness of that narrative voice that can only ever describe your own life.

This is a universal and enduring quality. I’ve had teachers tell me — and to an extent they’re right — that first person is “less believable” because you KNOW you haven’t done those things.

To which I counter that WELL done, with the right balance of external activity and internal dialogue, with just enough of a “touch of nature makes the whole world kin” i.e. of physical sensation that the readers, too, have experienced, it can make you feel it is happening/happened to you.

In addition to the emotional scars of returning soldiers, the time dilation speaks to the feeling of aging while the world moves on around you. This is something I feel acutely as an aging college professor constantly encountering fresh crops of young whipper-snappers with their new fangled cultural references and ways of being! The time dilation reminds us that we are all at war with time, which is of course relative to the observer’s position. It’s also by far the most interesting aspect of the book and allows Haldeman to write the history of the next 1,000 years.

Suffice to say there are some ruminations on this war and war in general. Why are they fighting? Why can’t they learn more about the alien Taurans? How is the war the cornerstone of the economy? Does the war make it possible for the government to control most aspects of society?

The philosophical questions are more implied than pedantically presented. You don’t get anything quite like the classroom scenes of Starship Troopers. I honestly would have liked a little more explicit philosophy to chew on.

By Hampus Eckerman: There is a connection between Sweden and Chernobyl. Sweden was the first country where the fallout from Chernobyl was detected and it was from there the first news of the accident spread around the globe. This even before Pravda wrote about the accident. The Chief of IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, was at that time a Swede — Hans Blix — and he was the first westerner to inspect the consequences of the disaster. The east coast of Sweden was one of the places outside of Ukraine that suffered the most fallout and there are areas where radiation is still much higher than normal. Around 1000 cases of cancer in Sweden are directly linked to the Chernobyl disaster. After the accident, Swedes opened up their homes on the west coast to let Ukrainian children come and visit during summer to build up their strength. I was only 16 years old at the time of the accident. I remember the newspapers questioning if it would be safe to eat elk meat (the local version of MAD Magazine jokingly talked about BecquerElks), but that is about it. Stockholm, where I live, is not one of the areas that was affected and I think I never understood the seriousness of the issue. For me, visiting Chernobyl had more to do with my interest in weird travel locations.

Before leaving for Chernobyl, I dug up my old copy of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic. For those of you that haven’t read it, the narrative of the book concern a visit from aliens to earth which causes a huge area to become affected. Strange lifeforms start to move around, the laws of nature seem to change and there are strange artifacts left that both governments and independents want to claim. The UN cordons off the area, saying that all items should be given to a specially created institute, but scavengers still sneak into the area to steal artifacts and sell to the highest bidders. These scavengers are called Stalkers.

There is no immediate connection between the book and Chernobyl other than a huge restricted zone that ordinary citizens can’t visit and where the earth itself has become poisonous. But in 1987, an Ukrainian game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, was made based on the Strugatskys’ book and instead of letting aliens be the reason for the zone, they moved the narrative to Chernobyl in an alternative reality were a second explosion in the reactor made a much larger area toxic and caused strange mutations in animals. I only played the game a few times, but the feeling of it stayed with me. So I packed my book, thinking I was cool who remembered this connection.

Little did I know.

My Swedish translation of Roadside Picnic.

Chernobyl is a city around two hours from Kiev. It used to be inhabited by 14,000 citizens before the accident, but they were all evacuated. Now, somewhere between one-third and half of the houses have been made functional again and house around 5,000 workers who are still involved in the aftermath of the accident, nearly 30 years after it took place. It is placed around 15 km away from the nuclear reactor. Closer to the reactor is the ghost town of Pripyat. It used to house 50,000 people, who were all evacuated in around three hours. They only had one hour to gather a few of their belongings and were told that they would be able to return later on. This never happened. Between Pripyat and Chernobyl there are smaller houses that are being reclaimed by nature. Some of them are visible from the road during winter time, but during summer they are completely hidden by trees and leaves.

Radiation is patchy depending on fallout. There are hot spots, sometimes just a few meters wide, were radiation starts to climb and caused our Geiger counters to start screaming. Other places are quite safe. When going on a guided tour, you are strictly forbidden to enter forests or walk outside of the road. Nuclear dust still covers the area. You have to have clothing that covers both arms and legs. You are not allowed to eat or drink outside and before entering the canteen or leaving the zone, you are checked for radiation to see that you are safe. But those are the rules for us mundanes.

These do not apply to the Stalkers.

Old kindergarten near the town of Chernobyl.

There have always been tours available for scientists and journalists. But for the general public, nothing like that was available until official tours started in 2011. What no one really counted on was the enormous amount of interest the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R would create. Suddenly there were a lot of people who became interested in the area, wanted to visit, but found no legal ways. Thus were the Stalkers created. And there were many kinds of them. Some who only were after the thrills of doing something they weren’t allowed to. Classic youth rebellion. Others started to create their own tours for visitors. Plunderers had existed since the evacuation, and also poachers. As nature has started to reclaim the houses, so has wildlife. Boars, wild horses, dogs, wolves, bears and more. And all of them named from Strugatsky’s book.

In an article from 2015, Slate Magazine tracks down this subculture. Much like in the book, they have to sneak past police patrols and ever-increasing security. They have to navigate in a toxic environment where eating and drinking by itself is poisonous. The effect is not immediate as cancer can take decades to develop, so they often ignore the basic safety precautions, drinking from the rivers and pools. As in the book, they bring home artifacts plundered in the zone which in itself makes the radiation spread. They are shot at, have to avoid dangerous creatures in form of wild life that may have taken shelter in deserted building. They sometimes make up small installations for tourists or put up things they find interesting on walls.

When my guide first started to talk about the Stalkers, I got a weird sense of déjà vu. I was walking around in areas I had seen both in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R game and in other computer games as Call of Duty and Counter Strikes. It is officially forbidden to walk inside buildings, but it is hard to hide during winter time where tracks can be seen in the snow where people have walked. Looking inside a building showed how realistic the Fallout games really are. When windows are broken and the interiors are subjected to winds, cold and snow, walls and floors start to crack. This together with people plundering what others had left behind made me feel like a cross between a Stalker and the lone wanderer of Fallout 4, trying to adjust to a new reality after the catastrophe. For a comparison between the different games covering Chernobyl and reality, see this nice article on Atlas Obscura.

Ferris Wheel displayed in all games based on Chernobyl.

It is also possible to visit a missile base around three hours drive from Kiev. It is a scary place to visit in how it reminds you of Dr. Strangelove. Not only is there a bomb of the same type as the one that is dropped in the movie placed in the courtyard (that tourists straddle for nice touristy photos, preferable with a cowboy hat in one hand). We were also told that the nuclear weapons there, with a power of in total 500 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was connected to an automatic warning system for automatic deployment of the bomb. The Perimeter system was a system that analyzed data from a difference of factors as radiation, seismic activity and atmospheric pressure. If the system judged that a nuclear strike had occurred in Soviet Union, it would automatically deploy all existing nuclear missiles, bypassing any human decision making. It was in fact the doomsday machine from Dr. Strangelove.

A vile filer and wretched soul, riding the bomb. In the background, an SS-18 missile that was destined for US.

It is one thing to read in articles about nuclear accidents and missiles. It is quite a different thing to see this in reality. To understand the real persons involved. In this I must applaud the museums of both the missile base and the Chernobyl (placed in Kiev). Both of them took care to tell the stories of individuals and how they were affected. The people who suffered radiation sickness, had to leave their homes for ever, died to try to save hundreds of thousands of others or who had to sit in a small tiny room for days upon days, waiting for a signal that might start a nuclear war. It was a humbling experience and, as both my guides said, a scary tale of the folly of humanity.

(1) A Tokyo department store is offering a $91,000 solid gold figure of the alien Baltan, a villainous monster from Japan’s superhero Ultraman TV series. The perfect accessory to go with the 2007 Hugo base, except none of the winners I know can write the check!

(2) Stephen Fabian, among the most gifted illustrators ever, and whose professional career was capped by multiple Hugo nominations and a World Fantasy Life Achievement Award (2006), has put his gallery online. StephenFabian.com contains 500 drawings and paintings that he did for fan and professional publications beginning in 1965. Fabian includes autobiographical comments about each drawing or painting. For example, appended to his notes on the drawing “Born to Exile”:

And the greater wonder of it is, for me, that every once in a while I receive a surprise gift from a fan in appreciation of my artwork. In this case a fan sent me a beautiful copper etching that he made of my drawing that you see here, and that etching hangs on the wall in my drawing room. Other surprise tokens of appreciation that I’ve received from fans are; a miniature spun glass ship, a knitted sweater with an artist’s palette worked into the chest area, a neatly carved wooden figure of a “Running Bear,” that came from a missionary preacher in New Zealand, a fantasy belt buckle, and a miniature paper-mache sculptured “gnome” that keeps watch over me. I cherish them all, they give form and reality to that wonderful feeling of appreciation that comes from the heart.

General Mills announced the “unicorn of the cereal world,” Marshmallow Only Lucky Charms, is finally a reality — but there are only 10 boxes.

The cereal maker said the 10 boxes of Marshmallow Only Lucky Charms will be given out as prizes in the “Lucky Charms Lucky Selfie” contest, which calls on participants to post pictures of themselves holding “imaginary boxes of Lucky Charms” on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag, “#Lucky10Sweepstakes.”

I dream of the day that I’m libelled quoted by Mike on File770. Of course first I guess I’ll have to start a blog of some description.

I notice there is a lot of competition in the comments for the honor of being Santa Claus, but how many others can fix this up for you? While saving the internet from another blog? Merry Christmas!

(7) Mark Kelly journals about his Jonny Quest rewatch – a show that was a big favorite of mine as a kid.

So: the show is about Jonny Quest, his father Dr. Benton Quest, a world-renowned scientist, Quest’s pilot and bodyguard “Race” Bannon, and their ‘adopted son’ Hadji, an Indian boy who saved Dr. Quest’s life while visiting Calcutta. The episodes involve various investigations by Dr. Quest, who seems to have a new scientific specialty each week (sonic waves one week, lasers another, sea fish another, a rare mineral to support the space program on another) or who is challenged by alerts from old friends (a colleague who is captured by jungle natives) or threats from comic-book character Dr. Zin (via a robot spy, etc.)

Who We Are: Alliteration Ink is run by Steven Saus (member SFWA/HWA), focusing on anthologies and single-author collections, with over a dozen titles across two imprints.

Rachael Acks is a writer, geologist, and sharp-dressed sir. In addition to her steampunk novella series, she’s had short stories in Strange Horizons, Waylines, Daily Science Fiction, Penumbra, and more. She’s an active member of SFWA, the Northern Colorado Writer’s Workshop, and Codex.

Who: This will be an open call. All who read and follow the submission guidelines are welcome in the slush pile.

When: Rachael wants stories no later than 6 Jan 2016. No exceptions will be made. The Kickstarter will occur after the table of contents has been set.

What We Want From You:

Stories 2,000-7,500 words long. Query for anything shorter or longer.

All stories must begin with the line, No shit, there I was. It can be dialog or part of the regular prose.

(9) Childhood’s End starts December 14 on SyFy with a three-night event. Stars Charles Dance, recently of Game of Thrones.

John King Tarpinian says, “Hope they do not screw this up.”

I’m not completely reassured, because when I checked the SyFy Youtube channel today, this was the first video they were hyping —

(10) Today in History:

October 17, 1933: Physicist Albert Einstein arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

DSN reporter Laura Gjovaag came away with the Sunnyside newspaper’s only first-place award. She won the top award in the black and white sports photo action, or feature, category. The photo of Lady Knight softball player Jenna den Hoed appeared in the May 20, 2014 issue, and beat out all entries in the category submitted by all four circulation groups.

(12) Ultimately, Sarah A. Hoyt’s “Magical Thought” is about a particular anti-gun protest in Texas involving dildos, but on the way to that topic she writes —

The problem is that more and more — and unexpectedly — I run up against this type of thought in places I don’t expect.

We ran into it a lot over the puppy stuff. No matter how many times we told them we were in it for the stories, and because our story taste was different from theirs, they kept thinking magically. It went something like this “We’re good people, and we’re for minorities. So if these people don’t like the same stories we do, they must be racist and sexist.”

This was part of the nonsense that started Gallo’s flareup. She had some idea we’d get all upset at TOR publishing Kameron Hurley’s book. Because you know, we have different tastes than those primarily on the left who controlled the Hugos so long, so we don’t want them to … get published?

This only makes sense if the person saying it is inhabiting a magical world, where objects/people of certain valences are played against each other like some kind of card game.

This is not real. I mean sad puppy supporters might not — or might, I won’t because it’s not to my taste, but — read Hurley’s book, but we won’t recoil from it like a vampire from a cross. A Hurley book doesn’t magically cancel out a Torgersen book. Or vice versa.

On the good side, at least on that level, our side doesn’t act like that. We don’t say “ooh” at a new Ringo book because “Oooh, that will upset those liberals” we say “oooh,” because we’ll get to read it. Books are books and people are people, not points in some bizarre game.

Here’s my tiny theory, in a word. Abuse. And further, I’m going to suggest in this short essay that abuse?—?not making money?—?is the great problem tech and media have. The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by tech: patching up code, pushing out updates.

To explain, let me be clear what I mean by abuse. I don’t just mean the obvious: violent threats. I also mean the endless bickering, the predictable snark, the general atmosphere of little violences that permeate the social web…and the fact that the average person can’t do anything about it.

We once glorified Twitter as a great global town square, a shining agora where everyone could come together to converse. But I’ve never been to a town square where people can shove, push, taunt, bully, shout, harass, threaten, stalk, creep, and mob you…for eavesdropping on a conversation that they weren’t a part of…to alleviate their own existential rage…at their shattered dreams…and you can’t even call a cop. What does that particular social phenomenon sound like to you? Twitter could have been a town square. But now it’s more like a drunken, heaving mosh pit. And while there are people who love to dive into mosh pits, they’re probably not the audience you want to try to build a billion dollar publicly listed company that changes the world upon.

(14) “3+1” — A funny claymation short by Soline Fauconnier, Marie de Lapparent, and Alexandre Cluchet.

Since they started writing in the mid-1950s, the brothers published at least twenty-six novels, in addition to stories, plays and a few works written individually. According to a 1967 poll, four of the top ten works of science fiction in the Soviet Union were by the Strugatskys, including Hard to Be a God in first place and Monday Begins on Saturday (1965) in second. For at least three decades they were the most popular science-fiction writers in Russia, and the most influential Russian science-fiction writers in the world.

Their popularity wasn’t without political implications, however. Later in their lives, the Strugatskys were characterized as dissidents—sly underminers of the Soviet regime. In its obituary for Boris, who died in 2012 (Arkady died in 1991), the New York Times called him a “prolific writer who used the genre of science fiction to voice criticisms of Soviet life that would have been unthinkable in other literary forms.” This is mostly true­—their work did become critical and subversive over time. But at the beginning of their career, the Strugatsky brothers were the best socialist utopians in the game.

Briefly, and in October it’s almost mandatory, particularly for a lifelong horrorist such as myself, to deal with something eldritch, but I’ve finally read the August Derleth-annotated transcript of a symposium recorded on 24 October 1963 at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, a discussion of Lovecraft and his influence featuring a panel including Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, writer Arthur Jean Cox, Sam Russell, and Riverside Quarterly editor Leland Sapiro, along with some comments and questions from the audience. Given that Bloch and Leiber were both helped and influenced by Lovecraft early in their careers and were the two most important exemplars of how to take his model for approaching the matter of horror fiction and improving upon it, it’s useful, if not as comprehensive here as one could hope, to see how they thought about that influence and their respective takes on Lovecraft’s work and legacy. Bloch unsurprisingly seems most taken by the interior aspects of what Lovecraft was getting at in his best work, the questions of identity and madness and usurpation from within; Leiber, also not too surprisingly, is at least as engaged by the larger implications, philosophically and otherwise, of humanity’s not terribly secure foothold in Lovecraft’s universe. The notion that such non-fans of Lovecraft as Avram Davidson and Edmund Wilson had more in common with him than their experience of his work led them to believe is briefly if amusingly explored. Not as significant as some of Leiber and Bloch’s other considerations of Lovecraft, but useful to read, and one’s suspicions of what August Derleth made of what he was transcribing and annotating, particularly when it touches on his own involvement with Lovecraft’s body of work, are mildly telling.